We’ve had a crazy few days here at D*S getting the redesign up and running (and de-bugging like crazy), so I couldn’t think of a better and happier way to kick off DIY day than by introducing our newest team member: our resident upholstery expert, Amanda Brown of Spruce Austin! I’ve been a massive, massive fan of Spruce’s work since they first opened, and I feel incredibly lucky to have Amanda as part of our team. She’ll be joining us every month to walk us through the ins and outs of doing your own home upholstery. It’s no small task, but if anyone can break it down and get us started, it’s Amanda. So stay tuned later this month for her Upholstery 101 series. My hope is to get a 101 level series done for all major home skills (DIY, Before & Afters, etc.), so we can walk you through just about any project or idea you see on the site.
In addition to Amanda joining the team, she recently launched a fantastic how-to upholstery DVD called Spruce At Home Volume 01: Tight Seats and Backs (you can watch the preview above). If you’ve ever wanted to see someone break down upholstery in video form, this fun and informative look at one of the more daunting home skills you can master is a great one. You can check out more of the video right here and pick up a copy for $50 (about ten times less than the average upholstery class I’ve seen online). Congrats to Amanda and her producer Chris Hatcher (that’s them up top), and thanks again to Amanda for joining the team! xo, grace
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I think if I had to pick one dream activity that I would loooove to master, it would be upholstery, so I’m thrilled about this!
OMG i could hardly whip my credit card out fast enough for this video! I have been a fan of Spuce Austin for a long time, thank for bringing them right into my home.
i *just* signed up for an upholstery class at a local community center so this is great timing! I trash picked 2 great, but sad, chairs last spring that are in desperate need of love. Bring it Amanda!
Sounds amazing! I’ve always been a bit too chicken to try it myself.
What a great addition to your team! Looking forward to this series.
Brilliant! Ever since you first introduced the Spruce team on Design Sponge, I’ve felt inspired and encouraged that I could give it a go too, now look at me go! I can’t stop!
Thank you Amanda and thank you D*S!!!
What a great addition to the D*S team! I totally need to learn how to do this!
Oooh, exciting!! Can’t wait for Upholstery 101. I usually learn by mucking up the first few projects, so a little expert advice never hurts :).
Great news D*S! I’m beyond excited about the 101 series, too. I’m very much a novice DIY-er, and I even printed out the D*S “Basics of Spray Paint” post and followed each step while recently spray painting a mirror. The 101 series will surely be put to great use in my home!
Yay! I love Spruce! What a perfect addition to the Design*Sponge team! I think one of those DVDs must go on the b-day list.
Ooooh! So excited about this! I’ve been a fan of Spruce’s for a while now too!!
Amazing. That’s a perfect time. I have at least two upholstery projects! Looking forward to the column.
Congratulations to Spruce! Bringing upholstery to the people is a good thing.
oooh that is amazing. And I have a chair that needs to be done!
Finally, someone to show how it is actually done. Looking forward to learning
it the colrrect way!
Amanda – This is awesome news! Congrats lady!
Super excited about seeing Amanda!!!! I will definitely be tuning in for that!
The Southern Living article on Spruce a few months back really inspired me, so I’m really excited about this news!
I have been dying for an upholstery DIY. This is my favorite post to date!
I am SO EXCITED! Spruce is amazing, and I was just thinking that I need to learn how to do real upholstery projects! Yay!
Yes! I am so excited to learn upholstery!
YES, YES, YES!!! Amanda and Spruce are THE BEST!!!
Very cool! I have a chair that I had a Paul McCobb chair redone at Spruce and it turned out amazing!
Amanda is really the perfect person for the job. I have admired Spruce’s work for a long time and can’t wait to watch their new DVD and start reupholstering!
How amazing! I love Spruce and always check out their website, even though I am far away in South Carolina! And, odd timing, but I just this week decided to learn to upholster and I have a huge stack of books sitting by my couch. I’m excited! :)
This sounds amazing! I usually just try things and then live with my less than perfect results, but having a visual guide seems to help me SO much more. Yay! Also, the site redesign is gorgeous!
Yay!!! From one of my favorite blogs come one of my more desired traits to learn!!! Thank you, D*S. I look forward to reading everything Amanda writes.
This is SO COOL! I have a few chairs that are in dyer need of a good upholstery. Thanks for adding this feature! (Cool new site by the way!)
Perfect timing! I’m attempting to upholster a couch at the moment. Emphasis on the word attempting…
this is so exciting!! I’ve been wanting to get into upholstery and this seems like just the ticket!
I’m so excited! I have two club chairs and an ottoman I’ve wanted to recover and have been waiting for a DIY from Design Sponge!
Yay! Austin represent! We have such wonderful, creative people in this town. Glad to see the rest of the world is starting to catch on :)
OHH! I am so excited! I’ve been searching for a place to learn upholstering. I can’t wait!
Welcome!!! Can’t wait to see more from you ;)
Yeaaa! I love a piece of furniture with great bones brought back to life with new upholstery!! Can’t wait to see!
I have been a fan of Spruce for a long time since they are in my hometown of Austin, Texas. Next on my list of things to do this summer is to take an upholstery class, so this is perfect timing. I can’t wait to see what Amanda has in store for us.
Hi Grace-it would be really great if your links directed to opening another tab. For example, I was reading this post and wanted to check out the Spruce website so I clicked the link. The page took me away from Design Sponge and I navigated Spruce but couldn’t get back to Design Sponge. I had to start all over on the Design Sponge homepage. Just a thought. I’ve noticed it before and it’s pretty inconvenient. But I love the redesign, it’s beautiful.
heidi
we’re on it ;) we used to have a blanket piece of code on the old site that made all links open in a new window and it got lost in the move. it’s one of the 20 million bug tickets we’re processing :)
g
Hi. Love Austin Space. Is there any way they can reference their fabrics? It’s so hard to find such great fabrics. Or would we have to buy through Austin Space?
Please disregard last comment. THanks
Thank you!!!!! Besides checking flights almost monthly to see if I could swing a trip from Canada to Austin to visit Spruce in person this could be the next best thing. Notice I said next…..I would love nothing more than to be a Sprucette and now maybe I could be the Northern Spruce!
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